The Messenger
by AnnaRinzler
Summary: A short story about how Raven felt between Birthmark and The End
1. Delivery

The Messenger

Dislaimer: I own NOTHING. Not the Titans, not Slade.

Looks at Slade

Looks at disclaimer

Bangs head on wall

She still hated him. It was all over, she had triumphed, and he still haunted her soul down to the very essence of her being. Her father the daemon's prescence was obliterated from her mind, but she didn't hate him. One cannot _hate_ evil itself.

The messenger. He was the man she could envision burning forever in a lake of fire. But perhaps that was too good for him. He had used her, exposed her secret to her friends, burned half of her city, and and made her endure searing pain from the red runes he placed over her entire body with his own two hands the first moonlit night and awakened on the last.

Like the archangel Gabriel in the human Bible, he delivered a message. But this message was definitely not a good one. It was her message. The world's message.

_When the world ends, it will be all your fault. You. It is you, truly._

She didn't know who he was, no one did. Not even when he was alive. She didn't want to know. Even in death, he wore that mask, that black and silver armor that covered him from head to toe. No one knew. But she thought of him. She thought of him then, she thought of him know. She didn't know him before he died. He didn't care about her. She passed under his radar. But when he got his orders, suddenly she became the centre of his attention. And he became hers.

Physically, she was strong. She thought herself strong inside her mind, but this man made her feel as brittle as glass. Over the space of about a month, their encounters ate through her soul like black acid.

The first night. When it all began. He targeted her, and when she stopped time, he caught up to her. He was carrying the red portal runes, and these he placed over her body himself. Then he showed her the future, held her in his arms, and talked of her chiling destiny.

_Look at it. Drink it in. Behold the world you are destined to create._

He let her fall. He let her fall off a tower, knowing that her friend, the leader of their group, would catch her. And he did. Her other friends, they were shocked. They couldn't comprehend it. She had to be carried back to their home, and her clothes were practically torn off. That first night, he ripped her dignity to shreds.

She hid it well. But her next encounter happened at the library. Her friends, concerned for her, went there, seeking answers. And she went there too. But she ran, ran after hearing the prophecy. But she came back. Came back to find _him_ torturing her friends, coming dangerously close to telling them everything.

_If you don't tell them, I will._

She lost control. She threw the messenger around like he was nothing, pummeled him while her eyes glowed red and the runes flaired up. Her friends saw it all. And they demanded answers. So she told them. She might not have, if it wasn't for _him._ She told them her destiny, and the fate of the world. That second night, he taught her sadness.

They tried to lead normal lives. They went on with their duties, and she hid it, but in the back of her mind she always wodered when he would come back, what he would do to her, what he would say. She tried to meditate, the day before the end, though she didn't know it was at the time. Big mistake.

_Hello, my little bird._

He threw her into another vision. She tried to run, but he had grabed her wrist and swung her around roughly. She struggled, but he wrapped an arm around her waist possesively, and with the other hand traced a mark down her shoulder. Laying the cold metal of his mask against her cheek, he told her arcane, unholy, demonic things, in that vision. She looked out over the future ruins of the world, and then the tears came. And with them came hate.

He saw her this way. He was the only one. He knew what she felt, watched her as she sobbed on the ground. He knew her. And she hated him for knowing.

When she weakly staggered to her feet, he did something that made her hate herself, and him, even more. He pulled her to his chest, and she clung, weeping, to him. He placed a gloved arm wordlessly around her waist as she cried herself dry. Picking her up as if she was as light as a feather, and held her in his arms. She hated him for this one act of mercy, and for seeing her tears, for being the one person in the world who truly knew her.

He allowed her to go home, that night. But not before brushing awa her tears, and reminding her, in no uncertain terms, that she was his. And in a way, she was. She was bound to him forever. That third night, he taught her hate.

The next day, she thought of him. She thought of nothing else, though she was very good at hiding it. Her friends didn't know. THey never found out, actually.

But on that day, the world ended.

_Give me the girl, _he said to her friends.

They refused. But she couldn't stand to see their hurt. Knocking them unconcious, she bowed to him. He asked her if he needed to restrain her. She said no, she would go with him. All the while, she was thinking of the night before, how he had shown her mercy. She knew he remembered too. In frosty silence they had walked down together to end the world. She felt like a thing, now.

She spitefully called him a weak fool, and he retaliated. Last she saw of him, he was being restrained by the very demons he once commanded.

The world did end, but she and her friends brought it back. Even now, she still marveled at this. They did it. They won. But he still haunted her thoughts, her dreams, and permeated the essence of her being. After all this time, he was still there. Both in her mind, and in the world. Looking out of the windows of Titans Tower, she thought of him. And Raven knew, Slade was still there.

PLEASE REVIEW! If you people don't review, I'll stop writing. Input. Please. Questions, corrections, ANYTHING! I can take it. I just want feedback.


	2. Remembrance

Chapter Two

_Disclaimer: I still don't own Teen Titans._

_Thoughts. _

Raven had a whole box of them, a black box, tucked in the corner of a big black shelf in her mind. The ones she didn't want anymore—the ones that wouldn't go away. Some of them fantasies; some of them feelings that she didn't know how to deal with and just wished she never felt at all.

This was a day for…both. She remembered. No one else did—or they didn't want to. They didn't want to think about the world ending, or Slade, or any of that stuff. "Stuff" was quickly becoming Raven's new favorite word.

"Stuff" didn't hurt people. "Stuff" was just a word, a silly little word that one could use instead of saying what really happened to you, something non-committal that didn't betray anyone. "Stuff" happened that month. _"Stuff" _happened that first day, when she had been horror-struck to find Slade prancing around with her father's mark.

And "stuff" happened all those times she _liked it. _

No, Raven reasoned with herself, she didn't like it—but the demon half of her did. At this she began idly thinking back to those times, tickling her fancy, or perhaps mollifying "Demon Raven" with some "Good" memories.

She was a living contradiction. She would always be.

Raven could remember being on the rooftop.

"_It's so beautiful!" She wanted to scream, staring out, out forever at the ruined wreckage of the planet, out at the wondrous red moon and the blackened buildings and how she was just alone now, with no pathetic humans wallowing around. She was alone, until Slade squeezed her wrist-a strange comfort to the human half; an annoyance to the demon half._

"_This is just a vision…" Raven seethed, and HIS demon half laughed at her._

"_All these things will come to pass—I will make sure of it."_

_She wanted to laugh too—laugh with him as they looked over lakes of magma and skies of blood and stood together in that moment._

But she didn't. She didn't laugh and she didn't cry, she just held everything in check like she always did, and silenced her demon blood. But the chase! Ah, when time stopped—literally, and he had to hunt her down through the streets…

"_YES!" She wanted to howl, flying faster, faster, feeling the cold air whip her hair around and around, and the pair of them wove in and out of buildings and trees until finally—_

_She let him catch her. Raven couldn't and didn't suppress her urge to let him that time, when she floated there and they both went soaring into the building._

_Her demon half wanted to see, and her human half was tired of running._

But Raven had shuddered at that memory: That was all _theirs, _all for "Raven" and "Slade" and none for the people they really were beyond the demons that relished pain and misery and the adrenaline _rush._

And on some level, the real Raven missed him. She would never tell the others of course, because they wouldn't understand what she meant. Of course Slade had all the powers Trigon saw fit to give him—which included sneaking into her meditation time.

"_You again?" She would say irritably, worming out his presence in her mind before she closed her eyes and went into limbo._

"_Me again," he would sneer, both of them pretending he was always there to do a job and not because they both just felt like talking or taunting each other._

_And then they would sit in midair across from each other. The routine was about the same every time: She would gripe about him ruining her meditation, and he would know, and she would tell him to get out, and he would say he didn't "feel" like it…_

And in some ways she wanted him in her mind—when the messenger was there, her father wouldn't be. In some perverted, dismal way, Slade was a comfort to both sides—for he was the only other human that knew what she was going through, and the only other "demon" high enough to entertain demonic Raven.

Damn him to hell for it.

**Author's note: WOO! Another chapter down. What do you guys think of it? It could be interpreted a few different ways…but I don't know if I'll write more or not. Come on, people. I do love reviews you know. Please? I might write more…Anyway, my muse just came to call, so I figured I'd let you see. **


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